White Feathers
by Goz
Summary: Suppose Luna and Artemis never made it to earth. Suppose a lot of things. An alternate universe story in which Setsuna and the Starlights must track down the other scouts while dealing with a rather changed Negaverse.


White Feathers  
  
by Goz  
  
Continuity Note: Alternate universe.  
  
-  
  
Prologue  
  
How would the blue move?  
  
Sailor Pluto knew the destruction of the moon. She knew what its dying heartbeats would feel like - because she read them in the Book, and carefully remembered every word, that was how she knew.  
  
The crystals that provided the moon's power would go first, and the people would know something was wrong because the light would be gone. The heat would follow, and they would understand that better; half the moon would be in night, of course, and the Earth's shadow would cover most of the rest. It would get cold quickly, and more quickly when the air followed.  
  
It wouldn't be the battle that killed the last of them - because there would doubtless be a few, in remote places, who would survive it - it would be the loss of the air. The Book told her that the air and seas would be lost, but didn't say why, or how, just that the moon would become dry and airless.  
  
How would the seas move? What color would the air be? Would they affect one another, maybe in some sort of chemical reaction brought on by the cold? The page went on to tell Pluto of the rebirth of a select eight and the rescue of two long-lived cats to guide them, but she was thinking of what it would look like when the world finished ending, an hour or so from now. Usagi and her cat would live, and the seas would move as the moon felt its death throes. What captures *your* imagination?  
  
The Book had a sort of gravity for light - Pluto never had to turn it when she wanted to read, it would be legible no matter where she chose to sit. While she searched for the star that was Earth, and the blue proof she hoped it would give her of the end, shadows fell over the Book.  
  
Pluto was just getting used to the idea that she'd wouldn't get to see anything when she felt something glaring over her shoulder. She looked back on the closed time gates, then down at the Book.  
  
Her world turned upside-down. There were sticky-notes on the Book.  
  
Pluto, kneeling in the dust, tried to pull one off to read it - she'd put the Book down under the left gate-post, so there wasn't enough light - and, failing, picked up the Book and stumbled away from the gates.  
  
The first addition was under a passage saying, "The Moon Cats Luna and Artemis will be sent alive to Earth. They will in due time find the princesses and teach them all that they need to know."  
  
The note, penned in the sort of flawless calligraphy used only by the deranged, said, "Good with mint sauce. -B"  
  
Under, "The moon will become barren as the seas and air are shed into space," was a second note, written more hurriedly: "running late - keep them."  
  
-  
  
Chapter 1: The Book  
  
"What does "TBA" mean?" Yaten asked, flipping through the Book with an expression of utter bemusement on her face. Taiki, looking over her shoulder, added, "And why did the lords of fate choose to devote several million pages to it?"  
  
"It means they don't know," Setsuna explained briefly, throwing a glance over her shoulder at Seiya - Star Fighter was standing very deliberately in the center of the gates, doubtless in an attempt to make Pluto nervous. It was working. "Before the cats got killed, they all had records in them - now they only get filled in at the end of the day they describe. On one page around the 1400's it said "Lachesis' birthday party in Paris," but beyond that they evidently couldn't hazard a guess." She pursed her lips disapprovingly.  
  
"You'd think there would be, like, wars and stuff they could say for sure," Taiki cheerfully observed. "I mean, just two cats -"  
  
"Most things *have* gone off right, so far, though for some reason the Danish War ended a few days sooner than it was supposed to. I think the fates just hadn't encountered anything like this before. Classically, the bad guys are always less careful about killing an apparently weak good guy ahead of time - you know, like Heracles and the snakes. The fates may still think in those terms. Give that back," added Setsuna superfluously as she snatched the Book out of Yaten's hands. "If you go too far they'll start finding things they *know* the cats couldn't change."  
  
"Like what?"  
  
"Sol's expansion into a red giant and the destruction of the earth."  
  
"Oh."  
  
Yaten looked apprehensive. Setsuna exhaled. "I won't be keeping you that long. Do we have a deal, or not?"  
  
Seiya had remained ominously silent during Setsuna's explanation of the problem. "You seem awfully blase about meddling with fate yourself," she observed, expressionless. Taiki frowned at Seiya - some hidden anomaly in her sense of humor had assured Setsuna of Star Maker's cooperation from the beginning. "What assurance do we have that we won't get in trouble for this?"  
  
"If the fates were in the punishing business, I would be dead for removing Chaos, and Beryl would be dead also, and I wouldn't be bothering you," Setsuna pointed out sharply. "Keep in mind that I *changed* their history, and you'd be preserving it."  
  
"The fates gave you their book, of course they're not getting rid of you." Seiya waved a hand dismissively. "What if Beryl is dead? The Negaverse isn't slated to start up for another year now, correct?"  
  
"There are negative energy vibration things." Seiya stared at Setsuna, who squirmed a little. "Sailor Mercury has a little computer thing that can tell when the Negaverse is up to something. It took me centuries to learn to use it - the manual's in a language that doesn't seem to exist - but it beeps when it thinks there's something big going on on the Negaverse side of wherever it is, and if you set it on the right frequency you can hear people talking on the other side. The Generals started construction of a portal thing that opens in a Tokyo park about a month ago. Portal things take about six months to build - that's what I remember the Book saying before - so there must be others in the works someplace, though I haven't worked out where yet. All the construction workers ever do is curse," she added a bit sourly.  
  
"What do they do to "construct" it?" Taiki pounced eagerly before Seiya could broach another complaint.  
  
"They talk about a "WGS particle well" that gets a couple inches wider when the workers curse at it, and a "WGT particle stabilizer" that disappeared when they turned it on but comes back for a couple minutes at four in the afternoon. Apparently it's supposed to do that. And there are jackhammers." When Taiki started to press her again, she went on quickly, "There are probably books about it someplace on the moon. I haven't really checked it out. What was your other objection?" she asked Seiya politely.  
  
Yaten interrupted, thoughtfully, "We were supposed to be millionaires, right?"  
  
"I see no reason you shouldn't be anyway."  
  
Setsuna wanted to say something sarcastic about the possibility of Yaten's transferring her assets to their home planet's currency. Both Yaten and Taiki perked up enough that she held her tongue.  
  
They all looked expectantly at Seiya.  
  
-  
  
Continuity Note Continued: Okay, we got this figured out? What, no?  
  
1. During the Silver Millenium, the Moon had oceans and air.  
  
2. Setsuna is immortal, or very close to it, anyway. It's one of the perks of her job. She wasn't reborn on Earth with the others.  
  
3. Luna and Artemis died at the end of the Silver Millenium. For good. No coming back.  
  
4. Setsuna destroyed Chaos, which meant that Galaxia didn't turn evil, which meant that nothing happened to Princess Kakyuu, which meant that the Starlights had no need to be reborn on Earth, either.  
  
5. The Book idea isn't all that complicated. Lachesis is one of the three Fates in Greek mythology - maybe they're Sailor Scouts, I don't know. 


End file.
